The present invention is related to the subject matter of the following U.S. patents and copending U.S. patent applications:
A. Richard P. Kenan and Carl M. Verber, Electrooptical Multipliers; U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,833, Sept. 13, 1983. PA0 B. H. John Caulfield, Polynomial Evaluation; U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,230, Oct. 1, 1985. PA0 C. Carl M. Verber, Optical Computation; U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,229, Oct. 1, 1985. PA0 D. H. John Caulfield and William T. Rhodes, Optical Systolic Array Processing Ser. No. 450,153, filed Dec. 15, 1982. Now U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,569, issued Jan. 28, 1986. PA0 E. Carl M. Verber and Richard P. Kenan, Array Multiplication; Ser. No. 481,184, filed Apr. 1, 1983, and Ser. No. 573,528, filed Jan. 24, 1984 (continuation in part). Now U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,994, issued June 17, 1986.
Said patents and applications are assigned to the assignee of the present invention. All of the patents and applications cited above and the other references cited herein are hereby incorporated hereinto by reference and made a part hereof the same as if fully set forth herein for purposes of indicating the background of the invention and illustrating the state of the art.
Except where otherwise indicated herein, the components employed in typical embodiments of the present invention are now well known. Convenient ways of making them are described in the above mentioned patents and applications and in the references cited therein and herein.
Optical computers offer advantages over electrical computers in speed of data processing and freedom from electrical interference. An important component of such computers and for the inputs to them is an analog to digital (A/D) converter. In the prior art, A/D converters for processing optical signals typically have required optical to electrical signal conversions as well as electrical to optical signal conversion. An all-optical A/D converter that avoids the intermediate conversion to electrical signals allows the full realization of the advantages of optical compution. This invention accomplishes all-optical A/D conversion.